


Going Twice

by Tawabids



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Aliens, Okay probably crack, Slave auction, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-01
Updated: 2012-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 10:12:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tawabids/pseuds/Tawabids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik Lehnsherr, River Song and Jim Moriarty wage a bidding war in an alien black market for ownership of Charles Xavier. </p><p>Going once?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Twice

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what was going on when I wrote this.
> 
> Originally for [this prompt](http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/3278.html?thread=4648654#t4648654) on the X-Men First Kink community.

"Next up, lot number one-four-oh-seven."

Erik's heart rattled frantically inside the gauzy alien suit. He sat up straighter, almost elbowing the green sloth sitting on the chaise longue-style chair beside him. Light flooded the glass tube in the centre of the tiered room, and - there he was. Alive, blinking against the glow, one hand making a white print as it pressed flat against the glass. Still in the vest and saggy slacks he'd been wearing the morning he'd disappeared, almost six weeks ago. If Erik had just arrived here, he'd think it was so easy to wrench the metal out of the teleportation pads at either end of the glass tube, snatch Charles out of there and make a run for it. But the metal alloys in this place weren’t like those back on earth. They didn’t always behave the way he expected them to.

Erik took a sip of his drink. The bartender had called it _ginto_ , and promised it was safe and non-hallucinogenic for humans: it tasted faintly of rust, which Erik liked. He reached for his bidding remote. From the DJ booth, the auctioneer continued to drone.

"Human male, twentieth century Earth, thirty years, virgin."

Erik snorted into the ginto. Really? He supposed it was an untestable line they brought out, like a car salesman promising "one careful lady owner, she never overworked the clutch". 

"Notable talents include geometry and high-sentience telepathy, grade five by NSG measurements, currently dampened with adjustable diodes."

Erik realised the glass in his hand was shaking so much he was dripping ginto down his knuckles. He put it down and licked his hand clean, his eyes still on Charles. The green sloth looked scandalised. Or perhaps aroused. Erik still had a lot of trouble deciphering alien expressions.

“Because of the uniqueness of this particular item and the particularly unusual talent given his species, we will start the bidding at fifteen hundred.”

Shit. Erik’s man had promised the hacked account he was using – essentially a stolen intergalactic credit card – would not fizzle out below thirty thousand in the local currency, which was apparently the equivalent value of all the arable land in North America. But most of the auctions up until now had started at five hundred, and some of them had approached thirty thousand by the end of the bidding. He tapped the translator in his ear, hoping it was malfunctioning, but the auctioneer repeated. 

“Do we have fifteen hundred?”

Erik hit the ‘bid’ button on his remote.

“We have fifteen hundred,” the auctioneer droned, “to a Mr Moriarty.”

Erik twisted around in annoyance. A man with a weedy little moustache was grinning from his seat a couple of tiers above. He was not trying to blend in like Erik, but wore a beautifully tailored European business suit, in a cut that Erik didn’t recognise – something quite a way ahead of his time. Maybe even the next century. Another intergalactic traveller from Earth – was it really possible they’d invent it so soon? Erik shook his head and focused on the auction. He could have all the discussions about technology he liked with Charles as soon as this was over. 

“Fifteen hundred, do we have two thousand?”

Erik hit his remote. 

“Two thousand, to anonymous from unknown.”

Charles couldn’t see him through the one-way glass, but his head twitched around and his eyeline fell directly on Erik, both hands pressed against the surface of the tube. Erik thought, as loud as he could, _I’m here, I’m going to get you out,_ and saw Charles’ shoulders relax. Either they couldn’t or wouldn’t block his telepathy completely.  
“Two thousand, do we have three thousand? We have three thousand, to Mr Moriarty.”

Erik hit his remote again.

“Four thousand, from anonymous. Do we have five thousand? We have five thousand, from Mr Moriarty.”

Erik turned to glare at his human rival. Moriarty caught his eye and made a dark ‘o’ with his mouth, a mocking pantomime of shock. Erik squeezed his remote, making a subtle throat-cutting gesture in Moriarty’s direction. Moriarty raised his own remote nonchalantly and pressed it again.

“Six – no, seven thousand, again to Mr Moriarty. Do we have eight thousand?”

Quite suddenly, a voice cut across the soft music that flowed under the auctioneer’s drone. “Fifteen thousand.”

All eyes turned towards a woman in long silver gauze, the same local style of dress that Erik had donned. She looked human, though that was no real indication of her humanity, and had a head of thick, milky-coffee curls and a round, smirking face. She had her remote clasped in both hands in front of her.

“We have a new bidder for fifteen thousand, Doctor River Song. Will anyone go to sixteen thousand?”

Erik hit his remote. 

“Sixteen thousand.”

Moriarty must have followed his lead.

“Seventeen thousand.”

The woman with the curls raised her hand, her eyebrows twitching cheekily, “Twenty-five thousand, please.”

“We have twenty-five thousand.”

Shit. Shit. _Shit_. This was all or nothing. Erik got to his feet, clearing his throat. “Thirty-thousand.”

He glanced right at Moriarty, who sneered and pressed his remote once more. They both turned to look at the woman with the curls. 

“Mr Moriarty bids thirty-one thousand—”

The woman opened her mouth, shrugged apologetically at Erik and said, “Forty thousand.”

No! No, no fucking way, no one else in this damn sicko auction had gone for that much. He had been promised that thirty-thousand would cover the fee for sure. Erik sat down heavily, feeling the blood drain from his face. What did he do now? All this planning, all this work, and in three minutes it had all been for nothing.

“Forty thousand. Do we have an advance on forty thousand, gentleman? Anyone? Going once, going twice. Sold, for forty thousand, to Doctor River Song. Transaction confirmed. Goods will be automatically transferred to the loading bay.”

In the glass tube, Charles’ hands were balled into fists and he was looking directly at where Erik sat. Two fingers flew to his temples and there was the faintest whisper, clearly taking all the effort he had to fight against the dampeners, _Thank you, my friend, but don’t-_

And then the light went out, the teleporter activating at the same instant, and he was gone. Erik slumped, his hands hanging between his knees, total numbness filling his veins. Don’t what? Don’t give up? Don’t worry? Don’t come after me? He would never know – he had no way of tracking the winning bidder from this cosmic den of misery. He had no resources left to exploit and no contacts left to lever. He had failed.

Moriarty was walking past on the tier below. His eyes met Erik’s, and something in them made Erik flinch. He looked like men Erik had known from his time in the camps. Not nice men. At the very least, Charles wasn’t at his mercy.

No – Erik wasn’t just going to end it like this. The woman with the curls was walking away too, heading for one of the top doors that led to the docks. She was right in front of him, right now, and weapons were forbidden in the auction room, so she was unarmed. The bouncers at the door had, of course, no way of knowing that Erik himself was a weapon. 

He got up, drained the last of the ginto and trying to look good-humoured as he followed her out.  
He tailed Ms Curls – or whatever her name was, River Song, clearly a pseudonym made up by an alien who didn’t speak English very well – through the leisure bar and the orgy room and into the observation walkways at the top of the station. A hundred feet below them, foot traffic (and paw traffic, hoof traffic, tentacle traffic) flowed through the packed black market shopping mall. The windows in the ceiling above looked out into the grand expanse of outer space. Erik would have been suitably impressed if he didn’t have a mission on his mind. On a particularly long, isolated walkway, he waited until there was no one else without shouting distance and hailed his opponent.

“Miss Song! Excuse me, Miss Song.”

The woman stopped and turned, her hands folded in front of her. Her smile was warm and far too at ease for Erik’s liking. “It’s Doctor Song, actually.”

“I apologise,” Erik slowed a few feet in front of her and gave the quick bow he’d been taught was the local greeting gesture. “Look, I know this is against etiquette, but might I have a word with your purchase before you leave the station? He’s a criminal on my planet, you see, and I work for the parents of two young children he murdered. He’s the only one who knows where the bodies are buried.”

He gave her his broadest, most stunning smile. Doctor Song put one delicate hand to her mouth in what was clearly fake sympathy. “Oh, how terrible,” she said, and lowered the hand again, tilting her head. “But I’m afraid my people will already have shipped him out of here, Mr Anonymous. Better luck next time.”

As she started to turn, Erik reached out and grabbed her wrist, just tight enough that it wouldn’t hurt. Just. He said in a low voice, “I appreciate your predicament, but if you’d call your people back, then I won’t have to kill you.”

For a moment, an expression of fear crossed Doctor Song’s face. And then it resolved itself into pure sarcasm. “Really, Erik? You and who’s impressive metal arsenal?”

“Wha—”

She had slipped his grasp and grabbed his wrist, kicking one foot out from under him and slamming her shin into the back of his other knee. As he fell, she twisted his arm behind his back and threw his front half over the railing of the walkway. The wind knocked out of his lungs, Erik strained for a breath that wouldn’t come as he stared a hundred feet down at the aliens and humanoids doing their illegal Christmas shopping. In his ear, Doctor Song said smoothly, “I hope I didn’t break any of your ribs, Mr Lensherr. In about ten seconds we are going to need those remarkable powers of yours.”

Erik’s diaphragm unlocked and he sucked in the filtered are of the station. He rolled his shoulders, struggling as hard as he could while all too aware that if he overbalanced he would plummet and die, in space, a billion miles and who knew how many years away from home. Raven and the boys would never know what had happened to him or to Charles. 

“How the fuck do you know my name?” he rasped.

“My client knows an awful lot about you, and has a vested interest in your survival. Ready for the bullets?”

“Huh?”

Doctor Song pulled him back over the edge and spun him in front of her just as gunshots rung around them. Erik threw out his hand and felt the tiny metal droplets freeze in the air. The bullets were coming from several directions, but Erik could see the shooters. Doctor Song grabbed his hand and dragged him along the walkway, crouched low and she ran.

“These are ordinary bullets,” Erik shouted as he continued to deflect the hail of gunfire as best he could. “Earth bullets, I mean!”

“They’re Moriarty’s snipers,” Doctor Song hollered back. “He’s desperate to get his hands on a mind-reader. There’s our ride, straight ahead.”

Erik looked forward and saw that the walkway was blocked by what appeared to be a large, blue cabinet a little taller than a man. He threw out a hand at it, but it wasn’t metal – no, oddly enough it felt like there was so _much_ metal inside the cabinet that Erik’s power did not budge it in the slightest. River was pulling him full-pelt towards it, and just when he thought she was going to collide with the front, the doors opened and they sprinted through into a brightly-lit interior.

Erik gaped. 

“It’s…” he turned on the spot. “Bigger.”  
Before he had had much time to take in the curves and crannies of the impossible room, a figure at the top of the nearest stairs spotted him and cried out, in a voice Erik hadn’t heard for six long weeks, “Erik!”

Erik looked up as Charles bounded down the stairs and leaped off the last two into his arms. This would normally have been very undignified, but Erik was so glad to see Charles alive and not dissected or sold to the sex-pits of Gamma Minor’s Moon, that he picked Charles up and spun him around.

“Oh! This is Erik!” a tall, gangly man with a swoop of brown hair plunging over his forehead waved cheerily from a circular control panel above. Charles slapped Erik on the back, glancing at his alien outfit with an eyebrow raised, and led him up to console. The gangly man continued to babble without taking a breath. “I’ve been hearing all about you from Charles here. Won’t shut up about you, actually, when I was trying to get his incredible brain to have a lovely conservation with me about mentally-generated morphic fields, and… guh,” he stuck his tongue out and recoiled violently as Erik held out his hand to shake. “Ah, no, no, the TARDIS does not like you,” he slid behind Doctor Song, who had somehow switched outfits in the few seconds Erik had lost sight of her and was now in khaki trousers and a tank top. “Can you tell him to stop being quite so… magnetic-y?”

“I don’t think it’s something he can just turn off, sweetie,” Doctor Song said, propping her hand on her hip. She glanced at Erik. “How did you get here, anyway? That’s one think I forgot to ask my client.”

Erik shrugged. “I don’t really understand the… science of it. Hank seemed to. We met a man who sold us a, uh, ‘vortex manipulator’.”

“I’ll definitely have to ask him about that, I wonder what naughty boy’s been selling those to twentieth century Earth,” Doctor Song frowned. “Alright, let’s get you boys home, shall we?”

The impossible machine deposited them back on the front lawn of the mansion. They paused in the doorway for a moment while Charles was trying to finish the argument he was having having with the tall, gangly fellow about how telepathy worked. Erik held out his hand to Doctor Song.

“Sorry I threatened to kill you,” he grumbled.

“Not the first time, or your last,” she smiled. 

“May I ask who your… client is?” 

“An old friend. You haven’t met him yet.”

The gangly man paused his discussion with Charles long enough to interrupt. “I don’t approve of him at all, he’s a very violent man! Now, what were you saying about your experiments with Mr McCoy’s satellite transmitter…”

“Go on, give me a hint,” Erik insisted to River. “So I can thank him.”

Doctor Song glanced at the gangly man, but he was now very wrapped up in the argument (Erik heard something about “human brain innately has far less potential than your primitive science is so optimistically proposing, Charles!”). She leaned forward and whispered. “Let’s just say that in a few decades, you’re going to look an awful lot like him.”

Erik took a step back. “You’re serious?”

“Very. An errant time deviation occurred, you see, in which your friend Mr Xavier disappeared – six weeks ago, by your clock – and when you went to rescue him, as you attempted today, you were outbid by Mr Moriarty. You never saw Charles again. Decades passed. But some years after we met you figured out that I was a time traveller, and, well –” she glanced in exasperation at the ceiling, “you wouldn’t stop harping on about it. Once the Doctor realised there was a genuine hitch in time – Mr Xavier was never supposed to go missing, you see – he agreed to help out.”

“Thank you,” Erik said quietly. Charles had appeared at his side. “Thank you a lot, really.”

They stepped out into the Westchester sunlight, Charles shading his eyes and then waving his arms as someone in an upper window spotted him. Before they could be mobbed by ecstatic young mutants, Erik turned back to the open door where Doctor Song was standing and asked quietly, “Do you know whether – in the proper future-history, I mean – Charles and I are still friends?”

She gave a long sigh and shook her head, “Spoilers.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Means I can’t tell you,” she laughed, and raised her hand as she closed the door. “See you at the end of the century!”

Erik raised his hand in return as the blue cabinet faded out of sight.


End file.
